


Tiny Gorgeous Things

by AugustIsComing



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Drama, M/M, Post Reichenbach, Psychological Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-21
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-12-09 01:50:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/768573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AugustIsComing/pseuds/AugustIsComing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is not mentally okay after Sherlock died. How could he possibly be? When little anonymous and meaningful gifts start coming to him, he doesn't really know how to react. So he just sits around all day, thinking, and remembering, and missing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tiny Gorgeous Things

**Author's Note:**

> Hellooo. So, this is my first johnlock fic. Take it easy on me, please.
> 
> This fanfiction was inspired by this post [http://beejohn.tumblr.com/post/48226218747/sound-advice-project-a-custom-bracelet-of] and its tags.
> 
> If you find any mistake, please forgive me: I'm Brazilian, and my English is not perfect. Please let me know about any kind of mistake, and I'll rush to make it right as soon as possible. 
> 
> *This work is also uploaded to Fanfiction.Net
> 
> Hope you enjoy your reading :)

**Tiny Gorgeous Things**

The first gift John got was a little piece of blue velvet, inside of a tiny box.

It was inside the paper, and almost went unnoticed, because reading the paper reminded him of Sherlock.

And memories of Sherlock were already spread everywhere in their flat, he didn't need any more, thank you very much.

But the first gift John got was a piece of blue velvet that matched _his_ scarf, and even his eyes, some days.

Thinking of Sherlock's eyes made John remember how amazing they were. How they could change from blue to green to grey and back again, and again, and again…

John picked up the box, with its little piece of velvet, and sat on their couch.

He caressed the material in his hands, and daydreamt about how Sherlock would walk around their home, tapping his fingers on his chin, lost in his mind palace. Sometimes, so lost that he would not notice John wasn't there anymore.

John remembered how Sherlock would look when he was excited about some crazy idea that had just hit him, and how he would put on his scarf and drag John to somewhere unknown in some ungodly hour.

The first gift John got almost made him cry for the first time in almost six months.

But Sherlock had taken his tears with him, getting some gravedigger to bury them along with his body.

So all the reaction the First Gift got from John was sitting around all day, thinking, and remembering, and missing. Which, in fact, was not very different from the reaction daily life would get from John.

* * *

So life went by once more.

But a week after the First Gift came, on the exact anniversary of six months of the world's only consulting detective's death, the second gift came along.

It was a sheet of white paper, A4 size, slipped under his door.

In the centre, there was a drawing of a lion, and the only piece that broke its perfect attachment to reality, was a crown atop its head, nested in his mane.

He looked so… Superior.

And austere. And even, god forgive him… _Sherlockian._

Yes. The lion was Sherlockian.

Despite the fact that it was black and white, no areas coloured, John could picture his mane being black, and the rest of his pelage being of a light yellow, so light it would look white from afar.

And, if he spoke, John knew, he would have _his_ voice.

Soon, for John, the second gift turned into the Second Gift, and was framed and hanged on his wall.

He felt crazy, unstable. However, yet again, John could not help but think.

Think about the blood on the pavement, about the blank eyes, which he did not even have the chance to close.

He thought about Sherlock's last word. And it was John's name.

The doctor went to the consulting detective room, and closed the door.

By then, his smell was all gone, and John's human and flawed memory was already forgetting.

But John knew he smelled of rain, and hot tea. That sweet, unutterable smell that comes when the weather is about to become cold.

So comforting, and clean and… Just then, six months later, six months _too late_ , John realised Sherlock's smell had become his home.

Sitting on the edge of _his_ bed, John wanted to go back to the start. To the morning when he woke up to live the day when he was going to meet Sherlock Holmes.

He wouldn't change a thing, no, never.

But he would live it all over again. And, when it came closer to the end, the day when Sherlock was drugged by Irene Adler, the Woman, he would have laid beside him.

He would not let her crawl into his bedroom, he would not let her haunt his dreams.

He would stay beside Sherlock until he woke, feeling confused and dizzy.

And then he would put Sherlock back in bed, tuck him in, and lay by his side again.

* * *

The day after that, John wrote a post in his blog for the first time since The Last Post.

It was more of a little note filled with theories about where the gifts came from, and whether they were some kind of mean, cruel joke.

But, actually, John liked the Gifts.

They made him remember the right things, in the right moments and he had missed this feeling of mystery lingering around him.

Mystery was another thing Sherlock had taken with him.

* * *

A month after that, John received the third gift.

The three weeks that had gone after the Second Gift were terrible. He kept looking for things that could be hidden anywhere and everywhere and Mrs Hudson and Mycroft, in his few visits, watched him as if he had finally lost it.

Mycroft was the one paying the rent now, and he would drop by sometimes. John did not have a job, he wasn't really stable, and he could not complain about the company, which reminded him so badly of Sherlock.

Sherlock's things were untouched, his money was still on the bank, not a penny had been withdrawn. John would not allow such thing, and Mycroft kind of agreed. He had his reasons, which John did not care to know.

He also did not ask why the other Holmes had decided to pay for everything he needed.

He certainly did not deserve it. But he couldn't force himself out of the house, not the house that had been their home.

All that he ate was bought, cooked and served by Mrs Hudson.

John tried to make tea once, but ended up with two cups placed on the table, one of them waiting for someone who would not-- could not ever come for it.

When John realised his mistake, he had a panic attack, a staggering fear spreading through his body, just like back before Sherlock, after the war... It led to Mrs Hudson freaking out, and Mycroft calling a doctor, because John would not get off of the bed.

After that, John was treated as a child, and something in the back of his mind warned him that should annoy him, but he was so _off_ he did not find any significant part of him that cared.

And then one month after the Second Gift, Mrs Hudson got in the kitchen, and told him that someone had left a box of milk on their front door.

When John put the box on the kitchen table, he could not help but remember Sherlock.

Sherlock, who never bought the milk.

And now, he didn't have a chance to.

John breathed in and out, slowly, trying to not have a breakdown.

But the milk made him think of all the things Sherlock would never have the chance to do. All the cases he would not be able to solve.

How he would not have a child. He wouldn't even get to know that _John loved him._

But John wanted him to.

John wanted Sherlock to know that after he got in his life, the nightmares had stopped.

And, now that Sherlock was gone, there was no sleep in which he could have nightmares.

He would sleep two hours on a good night, but he was so tired, his mind did not allow him to have any kind of dream, good or bad.

At night, though, in the dark, when John had nothing to do, he would stay awake, lying on his bed under his covers, and seeing things.

He would see Sherlock fall and fall and fall, over and over again.

He would see Moriarty walking around him, his face transfigured into a snake's, his tongue darting out of his mouth, speaking about how Sherlock had died, about how good it had felt.

He would talk about how he had left John alive, so he could suffer.

And then, the old battlefield memories would come back to haunt him, mixing the new pain with the old one, making life hell.

His hallucinating was startling, but he did not want to call attention to it.

He knew pretty well the effects antidepressants could have.

He would rather spend his life with his hallucinations than to live in an alternative universe, far from the world he was actually in.

When the Third Gift came, it made him think that he had to do something. Because Sherlock had died, but John was alive. Sort of.

So, for the first time in a few months, John got up and made himself tea. No sugar. And milk. One cup.

* * *

The Third Gift woke John up, and he decided he wanted to do things again.

Leaving the flat was too much. So he would write on his blog daily.

Little notes about something he'd discovered about the world, or big texts about missing and losing and feeling and thinking and living.

One of those posts got an interesting comment: " _You should write a book_ ".

So he started writing a book.

The amount of words would grow considerably day by day, and after a couple of months of writing, he had finished his work.

Now, he could make his own tea, and the hours that used to be spent fearing imaginary monsters in bed were being productive.

He wanted Mycroft to read his book, and Mycroft did so happily.

John realised that without Sherlock to look after, and with the guilt of being kind of responsible for the death of his own little brother, Mycroft Holmes had taken John Watson as a substitute.

John realised that he was realising stuff again, which was a great progress, and he liked it. Being at least a little bit aware of the world was good.

Mycroft said he would send John's book to an editor, and John didn't see why not.

If he earned any money, it would go to Mycroft, because he also realised that he could not depend on the man forever.

John's book ended up as a small success, and the calls he got from the editor were the first proper contact he had with someone who wasn't Mrs Hudson and Mycroft, since that visit to his therapist.

The readers wanted a sequel to the 270 pages of romance they got.

They wanted to know if Holly Sheeran would end up marrying Wayne Johnson, or if she would leave London and go live in Ireland with her best friend.

John had expected himself to write a completely different kind of story, but he ended up with a love story in his hands, and he liked it.

So, when the second book was published, he began to write what he decided to be the last one in this saga.

Holly married Wayne. They had a kid when she was 30. She quit her job at the police to take care of their baby boy, Jheremy.

A few more months, and they were all out in the world.

On the anniversary of two year of the death of the world's only consulting detective, one week after the release of his last book, John got the fourth gift.

The doorbell rang, and Mrs Hudson had just left to do grocery shopping.

John had not left the house, not ever since that session with his psychologist, but he knew he should open the door.

There was no one on the other side, but there was a box on the welcome mat.

It was a bracelet, the same shade of blue of that little piece of velvet John had gotten so long ago. It had a weird shape, and was attached to a card.

"I love you." Was written on the card, under the image of what he thought were sound waves.

When John compared the shape of the bracelet to the the paper, he realised it was the same.

And then, John looked back at the card, noticing something that he had missed.

Two little letters on the edge of the paper.

_SH._

The pieces clicked together in John's brain.

_Sherlock Holmes._

Sherlock was not a fake.

He was not dead.

Sherlock Holmes loved John Watson.

John felt a presence in front of him. A tingle on the back of his neck, like when you feel someone staring at you.

And he knew who it was even before taking his gaze from the sheet of paper in his hands, and looking up into two green or blue or grey eyes.

And he didn't care how much he had suffered because Sherlock Holmes was right there in front of him.

And he knew that he'd be kissed back when he threw his arms around the taller man's neck, and pulled him down to lock their lips together.


End file.
